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SciVee!

This little bit of news came from Anthropology.net - check them out for some interesting anthro-related news. The integration of technology into all things related to science, research, community development, and so forth is inevitable really, and allows us to reach a wider audience, and communicate with our global neighbors...

SciVee: YouTube for Science!

From Slashdot, is news of new upcoming science 2.0 hotness called SciVee. Thinkof it as YouTube for Science. It comes by way of a partnership between theNational Science Foundation, Public Library of Science and the San DiegoSupercomputing Center.

This is such an awesome idea, and I hope it willrevolutionize the way we communicate science.

Why is it such a goodidea? Well, in the past, I’ve uploaded science videos, such as footage ofchimpanzees doing what chimps do, to accompany reviews of research papersdirectly to YouTube. When I uploaded the video I underestimated the impactactually seeing a chimpanzee in the unique behavior that was documented in theresearch paper. It now has over 80,000 views and two comments shy of breaking200.

Having this sort of multimedia available helps people digest theotherwise dense content much more easily,

“Scientists can upload theirresearch papers, accompanied by a video where they describe the work in the formof a short lecture, accompanied by a presentation. The formulaic, technicalstyle of scientific writing, the heavy jargonization and the need for carefulelaboration often renders reading papers a laborious effort. SciVee’s creatorshope that that the appeal of a video or audio explanation of paper will make iteasier for others to more quickly grasp the concepts of a paper and make it moredigestible both to colleagues and to the general public.”

Personally, Ilearn material much better when it comes from the mouth of one the authors of apaper. Most often, no one knows the content of a paper better than the peoplewho wrote it, so to have an author explain their research in normal lingo is aphenomenal concept. I don’t know why anyone hasn’t jumped on an idea like thisbefore.

But SciVee has some flaws that I see will hinder its growth. Itis yet another social network to sign up for and yet another one to keep trackof. I recently withdrew from over a dozen networks because they weren’t growingfast enough for me to be a part of.

Why founders of SciVee couldn’t foldthis sort of service into an already established technology like YouTube, Idon’t know. YouTube already has a massive userbase. A community of that sizecould not only expose videos and generate more discussion, but more people canbe potentially educated, as opposed to a small, not-yet-cohesive community.

Furthermore, SciVee videos are currently kinda sorta proprietary in thatI currently have no easy way to embed videos into blogs, and that will greatlydetermine how much I/we will use this service. Once SciVee understands theimportance of blogs in communicating and distributing research, that may change…but for now, it is lacking a big feature that helped make YouTube, Google Video,etc. the big multimedia powerhouses they are now.

But I totally welcomethis sort of innovation, especially as someone interested in the intersection oftechnology and anthropology. I hope some of the big names in anthropology startembracing new technology like this to distribute their research, thoughts,ideas. We’ll see if they do.